There was no cheering during Terync’s trip to the Tri-keep, the original fort turned administration building. The three-sided stone fort was actually the very first permanent structure built and occupied by the Tehynshins when they first came to this land.
It was said that the construction was aided by the dragons, which seems entirely plausible given that fort was built by melting individual stones together. Two stories above ground, with many more floors located underground. None of the students, or whelps as they were called, had any idea how deep the Tri-keep descended, but it was rumored that it connected to an Ancient’s citadel far below.
The path from the campus up to the Tri-keep led up a steep hill, a handy defensive feature in the worst of times and a suitably humbling experience in peaceful times for those students that were forced to make the exhausting run up the path.
Unless granted privileges, whelps were expected to run at a blinding pace everywhere they went. The only other permissible reason for a whelp to be caught walking was when one was engaged in conversation with a knight, an instructor, or a member of the training staff. For this reason, the trainers often found themselves beset by exhausted whelps, asking them questions, and trying to string them along in conversation until they reached their next class.
Usually, the trainers took this in stride, but every now and again they would cross their arms, indicating that they were to be left alone. When this happened, the students were required to take off running, sometimes to find a new trainer so they could continue their rest before the next class began.
Upperclassmen were the real threat. Though all students were considered whelps, they were still grouped by year. Any upperclassmen that caught a junior student not following any one of several dozen inane acts required of whelps was given a merit and the entire junior class given a collective demerit, unless the underclassmen were granted knight’s privileges.
Among the more ridiculous conducts required of a whelp, aside from the running, was a requirement that certain common words never be spoken, the list of which grew smaller as one advanced in years as a student. For a first-year whelp, the list included words such as ‘dragon’ and ‘knight’, difficult words to avoid when one was training to be a Dragon Knight.
What made the whole situation more difficult was the fact that none of the prohibited words nor any of the required acts were known by the first-year whelps in advance. These things were only learned when a mistake was made, and the student punished for it through a class demerit.
Typically, these demerits were worked off at the end of each week through extensive physical training. It was a brutal system for the students, except for those that were legacies, students whose families had graduated as Dragon Knights in years past. Even then, the rules seemed to change year by year, as if the whole thing were simply a mechanism to invoke fear in and punish the first-year whelps.
So, even though there were no other students in sight, Terync ran from the main campus up to the Tri-keep. Being the reason for an entire class to earn a demerit was hardly a way to build friendships. He skidded to a stop in front of the thick metal door that served as the fort’s main entrance and punched the door three times, the only permissible way for a whelp to knock despite the resulting bloodied knuckles.
He waited patiently, for the proscribed twenty-five seconds before he punched the door again, five times this time. After thirteen seconds, he was permitted to open the door and enter the building. Again, though he could see no one watching him, he did everything by the book. Well… that is to say that he did everything by the ridiculous word of mouth rules. He would never let it be said that he failed to follow the conventions required of him.